The Tools I Use to Run my Food Blog + Online Business
Tools I Use to Run My Food Blog + Online Business
These are the exact tools I use to run my food blog and online business - from recipe plugins and email platforms to image optimization and affiliate tools. No fluff, just what actually works.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
👉 Some of these tools include special discounts or bonuses when you sign up through my link-so check the details!
Jump to:
- Home Printing Supplies
- Start Your Food Blog
- Grow Your Audience + Make Passive Income
- Sell Digital Products & Courses
- Content Creation & Design Tools
- Food & Recipe Blogging Tools
- Optimize & Monetize Your Blog
- My Favorite Courses and Memberships!
- Passive Income Superstars - Leanne Chapman
- Nina Clapperton's Courses - She Knows SEO
- Amazon Influencer: Courses & Plugins to Make More Money (Kathleen Kobel)
Home Printing Supplies
If you print PDFs at home, here is a simple list of home printing supplies I use and recommend.
Start Your Food Blog
Tools I used to launch my blog quickly, on a tight budget, and without the tech headaches.
BigScoots (Hosting)
Why I Love It: Fast, affordable, and reliable hosting with amazing support. I switched after my old host crashed during a recipe launch.
Feast Plugin (theme)
Why I Love It: Made for food and travel bloggers. The Feast plugin helped my site hit 100 speed & pass Core Web Vitals. Free 30-day trial.
Kit (ConvertKit)
Why I Love It: I use Kit to send weekly emails, promote new recipes, & deliver my opt-ins. Simple to use & built for creators.
Grow Your Audience + Make Passive Income
These tools helped me grow traffic, improve SEO, and earn affiliate income - without spending hours learning complicated tech. They're perfect for bloggers who want to work smarter, not harder.
ConvertBox (Popups)
Why I Love It: I use ConvertBox to deliver my freebies, grow my email list, and promote sales - all without annoying my readers. It's smart, easy to set up, and doesn't slow down my site.
LinkWhisper (Smart Links)
Why I Love It: Internal linking used to take me forever - until I got Link Whisper. Now I can instantly add links between blog posts to boost my SEO and keep readers on my site longer. Total time-saver!
Lasso (Affiliate Links)
Why I Love It: Lasso helps me organize and display affiliate links in beautiful, clickable boxes, with no coding needed. I love that I can update links in one place and track clicks all inside my dashboard.
Fluencer Fruit
Why I Love It: This tool gives quick clarity on which products have strong commission potential, low competition, and good placement opportunities. Make data-driven decisions. Saves hours on research!
Oink for Influencers
Why I Love It: This plugin helps me track, tag, & optimize my
GeniusLink
Why I Love It: A link management tool that boosts affiliate earnings by creating smart links that automatically route visitors to the best destination country and highest‑converting affiliate program.
Sell Digital Products & Courses
Tools I used to create, host, and deliver digital products and online courses-without monthly fees, tech overwhelm, or complicated platforms.
Why I Love It: My favorite all-in-one checkout tool for selling digital products, courses, and bundles. It makes beautiful sales pages, upsells, and has built-in affiliate management. NO Monthly Fees!
Teachery
Why I Love It: Teachery makes it easy to build & sell online courses, products, & memberships without tech headaches. It's beginner-friendly, & there are no extra transaction fees.
Dropbox
Why I Love It: I use Dropbox to store & deliver digital downloads quickly and reliably. It's perfect for sharing course materials, printables, & customer resources. And, they have affordable plans.
Content Creation & Design Tools
Professional-quality tools I rely on to design lead magnets, digital products, and branded content that converts and gets shared.
Haute Stock
Why I Love It: My go-to source for feminine, on-brand stock photos and videos since 2018! It's been a game-changer for keeping my blog, sales pages, and pins looking polished.
Creative Fabrica
Why I Love It: Affordable access to millions of fonts, graphics, templates, and designs-all with commercial use included. I love it for adorable clipart, printables, and mockups.
Canva
Why I Love It: I use Canva every day to design Pinterest pins, product mockups, lead magnets, and blog graphics. It's drag-and-drop simple-even if you're not a designer. Free & Pro plans.
Food & Recipe Blogging Tools
Specialized tools that help food bloggers format recipes, optimize site speed, and rank higher on Google - even if you're just starting out.
Why I Love It: It makes my recipes easy for readers to use & for Google to understand. I love the built‑in schema, jump‑to‑recipe button, and flexible recipe cards that look great on mobile - all without slowing down my site.
ShortPixel
Why I Love It: It drastically improves website speed, SEO rankings, and user experience by compressing my many, extra-large food images up to 90% without visible quality loss. And, very affordable plans.
KeySearch
Why I Love It: It offers an all-in-one, beginner-friendly SEO suite with in-depth keyword research, competitor analysis, and a content assistant at a budget-friendly price. Plus, you can start for free.
Optimize & Monetize Your Blog
These are the behind-the-scenes tools that help my blog run faster, rank higher, and earn more.
Other Tools I Use and Recommend:
✅ Hubbub Pro - Adds dynamic
✅ Tailwind - A social scheduling tool that helps me publish content on Pinterest & Instagram without the guesswork.
✅ WPRocket - This caching plugin improves loading speed, Core Web Vitals, & overall performance.
✅ Yoast SEO (not an affiliate link) - Helps improve content readability and keyword targeting
My Favorite Courses and Memberships!
Passive Income Superstars - Leanne Chapman
Leanne is one of my favorite creators and one of the people I've learned the most from regarding how to make passive income. I've taken several of her awesome, packed-to-the-brim courses. These are some of my favorites:
Affiliate Marketing Superstars - shows how to earn passive income by promoting other people's products through a website, email list, and social media.
Series to Superfans - a step by step course that teaches you how to create an automated evergreen email series that nurtures your audience, builds expert trust, and gently sells your offers or affiliate links using simple systems, templates, and tools that run smoothly in the background.
Email Marketing Superstars - a comprehensive course that shows you how to grow, nurture, automate, and monetize your email list with simple lessons on welcome sequences, audience segments, and newsletters that get opened and clicked.
Nina Clapperton's Courses - She Knows SEO
Nina is your go-to for SEO and blogging success! I've taken just about everything she offers and have learned SO much!
Profitable Part-Time Blogger - Turn the content you love writing into a calm, profitable, and sustainable business that earns like full-time on less than 20 hours a week.
6 Months to 50k Sessions SEO Strategy Masterclass - Learn the exact steps Nina followed, month by month, to grow her travel blog by 50k sessions to get into Mediavine in 6 months.
She Knows SEO Sales Funnels GPT - Turn your blog posts into a funnel that actually sells!
Amazon Influencer: Courses & Plugins to Make More Money (Kathleen Kobel)
Kathleen is a wonderful teacher and I love all the Youtube Lives and videos she posts, so you can watch when it's convenient for you.
Influence and Earn: The